A/N: Two snippets from melliyna's OT3 AU. First one takes place in Feb/March 1536, while Anne is pregnant with Tommy, Prince of Wales, and Henry is paying court to Jane Seymour. Second is set around 1540.
The King ordered him to keep this a secret from the Queen, and the Lord Chancellor intends to do exactly that. The King is the fount of the law, after all, and nothing he does can be wrong.
Then he walks into Anne's room, and sees the fear and exhaustion on her face (she needs this pregnancy to come to term so badly, and not just for her marriage's sake, her heart cannot lose one more child) and Tom decides that even if Henry will not turn back to his true loves, Anne at least deserves the truth. She is too intelligent to be insulted like that and too good to be made a fool of like that.
Besides, better she hear the news that the man she loves is with another from the other man she loves, than she hear it from unfriendly sources, or she have to witness it with her own eyes.
(melliyna's original writing below):
"I could berate him, ask him why he has to do this - why can we not be enough but Tom, love - there is no point. It changes nothing" Anne says with tears in her eyes, hands cradling the swell of her belly. "We must shut our eyes and endure, it seems".
The two of them lay together then, finding solace in each other and their love even if the other man they both love is absent.
"His Grace the Duke of Norfolk made numerous accusations at the Duke of Essex at the council table three days past — supporting heresy, stealing from the king, inciting rebellion. He was shouted down almost immediately by the King, and banished before the day was out, but the Lord Chancellor was remarkably shaken, by all accounts."
Susan Clarencius relates the info as she and her mistress, Princess Mary, sew clothes for the poor who live on their estates. Her eyes are alight with the drama from court, but Mary is more practical. "I'm not sure what Norfolk was thinking. Either power had gone to his head, or desperation. He must know the high esteem in which Their Majesties hold him."
Susan waves a hand. "Yes, yes, but the accusations were so many, and so grievous. He even accused Cromwell of plotting to marry you!"
Mary's mouth flattens at this, and she is unable to meet Susan's eyes. "He is far too sensible to aim that high."
"Yes, but there was some truth to Norfolk's underlying premise. It is strange, isn't it, that a widower with so much power and only one son would never seek out another wife, or even a mistress — there has never been a hint of scandal around Cromwell, unlike his preceder the Cardinal. A man of the cloth, with a mistress and two bastards! Cromwell is practically a monk, by comparison."
Still tutting about long-dead, two-faced cardinals, Susan leaves the room to deposit the mended garments. Mary waits until she is gone before she breaks into peals of laughter, until her eyes water and her sides ache, and the chambermaids are certain the Princess is hysterical.